Wireless digital networks, such as networks operating under the current Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards, are spreading in their popularity and availability. In a wireless local area network (WLAN) deployment, a number of clients can be connected to the same wireless network via one or more access points. The wireless access points usually can track the location of associated client devices, and use such location information to provide location-based services.
In certain scenarios, however, the access points cannot track the location of the client devices well. This is because the access points usually rely on IEEE 802.11 standard defined protocol, in which a client device will periodically send out probe requests that would allow access points in a wireless network to determine the location of the client device. These probe requests are transmitted infrequently by some client devices, and therefore may not provide enough information that is sufficient to accurately locate such client devices.
Moreover, recently, some mobile device manufacturers have deprecated the use of the client probing protocol for the benefit of preserving device battery life. Thus, there will be even fewer probe requests received from client devices from particular manufacturers.
On the other hand, the location accuracy in a multi-channel network depends on how many and how often access points in a WLAN receives probe requests from a particular client device. In general, the more probe requests that the access points receives from the particular client device during a particular time period, the more accurate the network can use information retrieved from these probe request to accurately determine the client device's location around the particular time period.